We keep returning to China because we love the dramatic landscapes and the fascinating culture. After starting our trip in a city, we couldn’t wait to escape the chaos and head to a scenic area – and the one we picked was Sanqinshan. It’s a mountainous area filled with spiky granite peaks where hiking paths…
Category: Asia
Witnessing China’s Matcha Lake
Hangzhou was never on my list of places to visit on this trip – we actually explored the city and its famous West Lake over ten years ago. The reason we returned was to explore another lake, 50km west of the city. It’s become famous for a wetland area where trees rise from the water…
Returning To China And Exploring Nanjing
It’s our fourth time visiting China – the country is massive so there’s always new areas to explore and old favourites to return to. This time we’re starting in Nanjing, in eastern China, and we’ll be making our way overland to the Tibetan plateau, and onwards to Mongolia. Annoyingly, it was £70 cheaper to fly…
Our 19 hour border crossing from China to Kyrgyzstan via the Torugart Pass
We’d heard horror stories about the border crossing from Pakistan to China and how many checks there were and hours it took but in the end we didn’t find it too bad and it only took about 7 hours. Today though we were travelling from China to Kyrgyzstan via the Torugart crossing. I couldn’t find…
Exploring the Silk Road city of Kashgar | China no
Kashgar has been an important stop along the Silk Road for the past 2000 years. It sits in the far western corner of China in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang. The old city has mostly been demolished and rebuilt, many people don’t like it because it now has a Disney-style feel to it and…
Driving along the jaw dropping Karakoram Highway | China
We checked into a rather expensive hotel at £23 but my goodness was it good. China has great hotel rooms, the mattresses are proper thick ones, not thin slabs of sunken foam. The bed sheets are always crisp and white, fresh from the laundry company, unlike in Pakistan where 50% of the rooms had filthy…
Crossing the highest border in the world | Khunjerab – from Pakistan to China
The Khunjerab border is the highest paved international border crossing in the world, set at 4600m elevation it closes for half the year due to snowfall. Our plan was to cross from Sost in Pakistan to Tashkurgan in China, via the Khunjerab pass. We stayed in a lovely homestay about 10km south of Sost, it’s…
Crazy suspension bridges and walking on a glacier | Hunza, Pakistan
Today we were making our way to the Upper Hunza region, of course we hitched a ride there and this time it was with a really nice couple of lads from Islamabad and Karachi. When we asked them where they were heading they said “we’re just driving, we’re on a roadtrip!” Our hostel was right…
Hitching, hiking and boating adventures | Attabad Lake, Pakistan
It was a photo of the blue waters of Attabad Lake that inspired me to travel to Pakistan and today is the day that we get to see it in real life. To get there we were hitching and our first ride was in the classic Pakistani little Suzuki car which have an open rear…
Hemp, glaciers and rug sellers | Hopper Valley, Pakistan
Visiting the Hopper Glacier from Karimabad sounded like a great little day trip but it proved to be rather challenging without a private car. We began with a hitchhike down to the main road with a lovely elderly couple that insisted if we come to Peshawar that we must stay with them. From the junction…
NON STOP TRAVELLING 